


Memories Long Gone

by EHyde



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, i guess, references to past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 11:59:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/849311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EHyde/pseuds/EHyde
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean gets a call from one of the last people he ever expected to hear from again, and realizes that things with Lisa didn't end as cleanly as he'd thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories Long Gone

“Hello?” Dean didn’t recognize the number that was calling, but he didn’t give his cell to people he didn’t trust, so it was probably worth answering … though probably it was more fallen angel crap that he didn’t have time to deal with …

“Is this—is this Dean Winchester?”

He recognized that voice. He’d never thought he’d hear it again. “ _Lisa?_ ”

“Okay, I have no idea who you are, but clearly you know me, so … I’m gonna need an explanation here.”

She didn’t remember him. Of _course_ she didn’t remember him, that was the point, but— “You called me. How did you even—?” Of course Lisa had had his number, but that was all gone, that was gone _years_ ago.

“I found your number in a stack of papers. I’d written it down—my own handwriting. I don’t remember doing that, and I don’t remember _you_ , but I’m starting to think I should.”

“… yeah.” She should. And Dean wanted to curse Cas for leaving gaps, leaving clues, but it was Dean who’d asked him to wipe her memory in the first place. This was on him.

“So … are you going to tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Look, it’s—can we do this in person?” This was going to be hard enough already, but he couldn’t explain something like this over the phone, and waiting till they could actually meet would give him time to _think_. Figure out exactly how—what he was going to do here.

A pause on the other end of the line. “Sure,” Lisa said, finally. “As long as it’s somewhere public.”

“Yeah. Ok, yeah.” He supposed he’d be freaked out, too. “Are you still at your place in Michigan? I can be there in a day, we could meet at … that pizza joint on Ninth?”

“You … really do know me, don’t you?” Dean didn’t answer. He was remembering pizza with Lisa and Ben, thinking what a horrible idea this was. He should stop, say no, you’ve made a mistake, I have no idea who you are. Shouldn’t open old wounds. “I thought you were some bad joke my friends had thought up,” Lisa went on. “You know, ‘Lisa’s been in the hospital, let’s make her think she’s got amnesia,’ and they’d talk about this man I’d been living with, this man I had never even heard of … and I got them to stop, but it was _weird_ , and then they’d ask if I was seeing a doctor, if I was getting help, and—I started to wonder if I really was crazy, but I put it aside. I got past it—until I found your number.”

“You’re not crazy. This—it wasn’t you.” _God, Cas, can’t you do anything right?_ “I’ll be there tomorrow, I’ll explain everything, I’ll—I’ll fix this.” How could he possibly fix this?

“… all right. I’ll—I’ll see you then.”

Dean hung up. Sam and Cas were both watching him. “I guess you heard,” said Dean. “I should head out now, so I can be there in—I’m gonna do this alone, okay?”

Sam nodded, but Cas— “Dean,” he said. “I should come with you.”

“Her friends remembered me, Cas! Of all the stupid—it was supposed to be a clean ending, how could you—?”

“Changing the memories of one or two people is one thing. To create an alternate history across a whole network of people—Zachariah, and a few others, were capable of that, but that was never within my power.”

“And you didn’t think to, maybe, tell me?”

“Dean. I did what you asked.”

“… yeah.” He had asked, and if he’d thought it through, he’d have maybe realized that it was a stupid idea, that you couldn’t just wipe the slate clean like that and expect there not to be consequences, sooner or later. “Yeah. This is on both of us.”

“Having fun drowning in your own guilt, or are you two forgetting something?”

Dean hadn’t realized Crowley was even in the room. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “I’m running out of reasons why you’re still alive.” Calmly.

“Dean, we need him,” said Sam. Of course Dean knew that.

“Thing is, it’s difficult to properly atone for anything, when others keep taking credit for your sins,” said Crowley. “I was the one who had your girl and her kid tortured. Remember that.”

“Oh, I will.” Dean grabbed his coat, headed to the front door of the bunker. He turned back to Cas at the last minute. “Well? Are you coming?”

 —

After Dean and Cas had left, Sam turned to Crowley. “What was that about?”

“They were next on my list,” said Crowley. “Lisa and Ben Braeden. If you hadn’t come for Jody Mills. I knew that Castiel had wiped their memories, you see, I knew that Dean had asked him to, and your brother can be _so_ predictable—you can be, too, of course—but he’d have wondered—if Lisa and Ben had remembered me, would they have stood a chance? Would they not have died? Of course I’d have killed them either way, but Dean would be beating himself up about that for the rest of his life.”

“But you _didn’t_ do that,” said Sam. “You didn’t kill them.”

“And yet somehow, that doesn’t seem to make a difference. I _would_ have done it.”

“It makes a pretty big difference to Lisa and Ben.”

Crowley paused. “I didn’t ask to feel this. I didn’t ask for all this guilt. You put it on me, Moose, and there are times I want to kill you for it, and then you say things like that. Two human souls, alive and unharmed. Because of me.”

“It may not seem like a lot,” said Sam. He wasn’t really sure what Crowley was getting at. “But—”

“Oh, it does, believe me. Do you think we’d go to the trouble of making deals at crossroads if every single soul wasn’t important? Two souls,” he repeated. “Moose, I think I’m starting to understand why you save people.”

—

It had taken about twelve hours to make the drive to Battle Creek, Michigan, and in all that time they really hadn’t come up with a better plan than just “explain what happened and hope she’ll believe us.” Because explaining how the world really was to civilians, that always went well …

Lisa was sitting at a table on the crowded plaza of the pizza place, alone. She probably looked pretty confident to most people, but Dean knew her well enough to tell she was nervous. Well, he was too. He and Cas approached the table. “Hey there.”

Lisa looked up at him, startled. “You’re—I recognize you from the hospital. You’re the guy who hit me with your car.”

“Yeah, about that …”

“That’s not what happened, is it?” Dean shook his head. “But you did … you put me there?”

Something about the way she said it— “No! I would never—” He took a breath. _Lisa doesn’t know you,_ he reminded myself. “It’s my fault you got hurt,” said Dean. “But I didn’t—”

“It’s not his fault,” Cas interrupted.

Dean looked at Cas. “Are we still doing this?” This meeting was going about as badly as it possibly could. He’d never had any hope of getting back what he and Lisa used to have—that was over with; he didn’t think he even wanted that anymore. But if there’d been any way to clean up the mess they’d made— _right. Small chance of that._

Lisa stood up. “So you’re the mysterious Dean Winchester, then,” she said, holding out a hand. And she smiled as Dean shook it, and he remembered how understanding, how cool about stuff Lisa had been, and he thought, maybe there was a chance after all. “And you are …?” she asked, looking to Cas.

“This is Castiel,” said Dean.

“I’m the one who erased your memories,” said Cas, blunt as always.

“Well,” said Lisa, sitting back down. “I think I’m gonna need a drink.”

—

“I’d call you crazy, but if this isn’t true then I’m crazy, too,” said Lisa. “Believe me, I’ve looked into it. Selective memory loss isn’t a thing that just happens. And it’s—it’s just a thing you can do.”

“Could do,” said Castiel. “I’m not an angel anymore. I can’t do any of that. I’m sorry, but I’m pretty useless now.”

“Maybe that’s for the best,” said Lisa. “Sounds like you never figured out the whole great power, great responsibility thing.”

Dean blinked. “He just said he couldn’t give you your memories back.”

“Yeah,” said Lisa, looking down, then back up at Dean. “What could’ve _possibly_ made you think this was a good idea?”

“I … don’t know that I was thinking much at all.”

“No kidding. _God,_ this is like every superhero ever combined into one giant _idiot!_ ” Dean couldn’t help it, he grinned. “What?”

“I was just remembering how much you hated the ending of _Superman II_.”

“You knew that? That makes it even worse. You should have known— _god_.”

“I didn’t think,” Dean repeated. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah.” She took another drink. “I know. You didn’t have to come here, you didn’t have to explain anything. And I am glad you did, really. It’s just—”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“So … if you’re an angel— _were_ an angel,” she asked Castiel, “does that mean all the stuff with those meteors last month, those stories about fallen angels, that’s real too?”

Cas nodded. “It’s possible that another angel could restore your memories,” he said. “But the chances of finding anyone willing to do me a favor, at this point … aren’t worth talking about.”

“Maybe a psychic?” Dean asked. “Pamela was able to access Anna’s memories that time …”

Cas shook his head. “Those memories were just repressed. Not gone.”

“Look,” said Dean. “I can’t promise we’ll find a way to fix you, but we’ll do everything we can. We won’t give up. I owe you and Ben that much.”

Lisa shook her head. “No.”

“—what?”

“I don’t need to be fixed. Even now, after you’ve told me what happened—it’s like a story. It doesn’t feel like my life. And I’m glad you told me, and you should have _never_ done what you did, but at this point—the story’s over. I’m not sure what good it would to for either of us to open that book again.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you to—I wasn’t thinking there’d be anything between us,” said Dean.

“Exactly.”

“You’re sure about this?”

“I know what happened now,” said Lisa. “That’s enough. I don’t need to remember it. I have a good life now, Dean. I don’t memories of something that could never happen.”

“Right, well …” This shouldn’t feel like this, shouldn’t hurt, it was _over_ , had been over for years. “If you ever change your mind …”

“I have your number.”

“What are you going to tell Ben?”

“I don’t know yet.” She stood up. “I really am grateful that you came. Knowing the truth, knowing what happened to me, means a lot. But I’m going home now, and … you’re not going to hear from me again.”

Objectively, this was the best possible outcome. She had believed them, she had taken it calmly, accepted what had happened. And she was letting them go without giving them yet another impossible task on top of everything else they had to deal with. And yet …

“I’m sorry,” said Cas, as he and Dean stood up too. “For everything.”

Lisa gave a slight nod. “Goodbye.”

—

Dean didn’t speak as they returned to the Impala, didn’t speak for the first hour and a half of their drive back home. “Cas,” he began, finally. “When I asked you to erase their memories—was I doing that for them, or for me?”

Cas took a while to answer. “I don’t know,” he said finally. But Dean thought he must have a pretty good idea.


End file.
